Kilty As Charged: Romance. Suspense. Haggis. (Kilty Series Book 1)

by Amy Vansant

  “Move over,” he said, motioning with the barrel of the gun. His accent told her he was a native of the Southeastern United States.

  Catriona closed her eyes, picturing where she’d left her Glock back at the apartment. Her memory was excellent, but only worked in pictures. If someone told her to meet him on Wednesday, she didn’t see the word Wednesday—she pictured a block of seven squares, like a calendar row, the center of which she could feel was Wednesday. If she later tried to remember the day of the meeting, the image would reappear and she could feel the meeting on that center block.

  Unfortunately, her particular sort of memory didn’t always remind her to grab her gun before wrapping a naked man in a fuzzy robe and rolling him out of her apartment on a dolly. She could picture it sitting on her counter and knew the barrel pointed towards the refrigerator—for what that was worth.

  Unicorn was a stranger. Her quasi-eidetic memory would never have forgotten his burgeoning horn.

  “Do I know you?” she asked, looking for a way to stall.

  The man shook his head.

  “No, and you don’t wanna, but it’s too late now. Move over.”

  “What a lovely accent. Are we shooting a Deliverance reboot?”

  He scowled and motioned with the gun. “I said move it. Passenger side.”

  She swung her legs from beneath the steering wheel as if intending to comply, but once clear, dove for the passenger door. Before her fingers touched the handle, it opened, and another man, as gaunt as Unicorn was pudgy, pointed a gun of his own at her head. He was young, but his expression didn’t have the joie de vivre she might have hoped for in a boy holding a gun toward her face. His stained, cockeyed teeth looked as though he’d been raking the garden with them. The lump in his cheek explained the stains; chewing tobacco. No sooner did she notice it than he spat a brown mass to the ground.

  Delightful.

  She heard Unicorn’s voice behind her. “Get paid the same, missy, dead or alive. You pick it.”

  Catriona righted herself in the passenger seat. The skinny man hopped into the back seat as Unicorn slid into the driver’s spot.

  “You can at least tell me what this is about,” she said.

  The Jeep roared to life. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  Chapter Six

  Unicorn pulled into the parking lot of a large storage building and Skinny exited. He opened her door and dragged her from the car by the forearm.

  “Easy!” she said, jerking from his grasp.

  He grunted and pushed her towards the building.

  Unicorn joined them and the two escorted her inside.

  The small room they entered was empty but for a wooden chair and a table. On the table sat several zip ties and a black shaving case.

  Catriona felt the blood drain from her face. She lifted her chin and forced a chuckle to convince herself all was well and inform her captors she wasn’t afraid.

  It was a big, fat lie.

  She pointed at the chair. “Oh, come on. Bit heavy handed, don’t you think? The old interrogation chair? I’ve seen this one before. Why don’t you just tie me over a shark tank?”

  Skinny snorted a laugh. “Where we gonna get sharks?” He rolled his eyes as Unicorn, who stared at him with no expression, pushed her into the chair.

  Catriona tried to bounce to her feet, but Unicorn applied steady pressure to her shoulder, pinching the sinew of her neck as the skinny man pulled back her arms. Her shoulders sang with pain as Skinny secured her wrists with one of the zip ties.

  Ouch. If this is one of my disgruntled studio assets exacting revenge for making him or her go to rehab, they’ve outdone themselves.

  She never imagined she might truly be in danger until the inconvenience of being kidnapped officially turned into false imprisonment. Now she found it hard to take her eyes off the black leather shaving case on the table. She couldn’t help but think it did not have safety razors and an airport-sized shaving cream in it.

  Catriona looked around the small room, searching for something that would explain her predicament. In her line of work she had plenty of enemies, but none she’d mentally graduated to will probably tie me to a chair and torture me status.

  “I think this has gone far enough, guys. It’s clear you have the wrong person.”

  “No we don’t,” said Unicorn.

  The door that led deeper into the building opened and a man wearing jeans and a ragged flannel shirt entered. He had a shockingly red beard that hung to the middle of his chest and walked with a pronounced limp. Catriona guessed him to be in his early sixties.

  “Ya work where they make the movies?” he asked.

  His accent differed from that of his cohorts, falling somewhere between their southern draw and the brogue of the man locked in the back of her truck.

  Oh no.

  In all the kidnapping, she’d forgotten about Naked MacWhiskeybreath. If she was killed, the man in her car might die from his fever or suffocate before anyone found him.

  But telling the lunatics who captured her about him might put his life in danger as well.

  Note to self: when boxing up feverish men, always add air holes to the case in the event I’m kidnapped and murdered.

  These were the sorts of things no one ever told you about.

  Stop babbling. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Think. Time to get to the bottom of things.

  As soon as the phrase bottom of things entered her mind, she had a flash of the highlander’s tush hanging beneath his kilt the night before. She realized the memory must have made her smirk when Redbeard suddenly barked at her.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Nerves jangling, she stared back at him, holding his gaze as brazenly as she could muster under the circumstances. Especially, since she’d just noticed he was wearing black gloves.

  That can’t be good.

  “What’s this about?”

  The man smiled but not in any way that put her at ease. He didn’t look like he was recalling a cute wardrobe malfunction. His cheek twitched and his entire jaw shifted unnaturally to the right.

  Catriona swallowed. What are you?

  The man pushed his jaw back into place before speaking. “Ah heard you were seen with a Highlander last night.”

  So the big guy in the trunk is the one they want.

  She opened her mouth to let them know the Highlander was in her Jeep and then feigned a yawn to hide the attempt. Don’t tell them yet. She needed time to think. They hadn’t unpacked the torture instruments yet and there was one very good reason to protect Kilty—giving him up would end her usefulness. As long as they thought she had information they needed, they wouldn’t kill her.

  She did her best to look confused. “A Highlander? I don’t think so. That would be weird.”

  “Ya didn’t find a man in a feileadh-mór last night?”

  “In a what?”

  “A great kilt. Didn’t wheel him to yer home?”

  “That would be even weirder.”

  “Do ya know a man named Ryft?”

  “Ryft? What kind of name is Ryft?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “No. I suppose he’s a Highlander, too?”

  Redbeard’s bushy eyebrows raised. “Aye. So ya do know him?”

  “No. But you’re clearly obsessed with Highlanders so I took a stab.”

  The big man hobbled forward and slapped her across the face. It hurt, but the shock of it made her almost numb to the pain.

  True anger began to swell in her breast.

  Catriona’s tongue swabbed the corner of her mouth, the taste of iron feeding her fury.

  She set her jaw and squinted up at Redbeard, her voice low and steady. “You know that thing about Highlanders.”

  His hand still hung in the air and his strange jaw clicked. “No. What’s that?”

  She leaned as far forward as her binds would allow, as if she was about to share a very important secret.

  “There
can only be one.”

  The two of them remained, eyes locked, until the man released a loud guffaw and put his face in hers. “I saw that movie and I can tell you—I thought there was only one until a week ago.”

  “Wait. Don’t tell me. You?”

  He nodded and his eyes narrowed. “You’re a feisty little bitch, aren’t ya?”

  She remained silent, holding his stare, though she’d stopped breathing to avoid his stale breath and because, for a moment, she’d forgotten how.

  He straightened and sucked his tooth with his tongue. “My name is Thorn Campbell. I’m a friend of Ryft’s. We were separated long ago and I’ve been looking for him.”

  “Great. Good luck with that. I’d like to leave now.”

  He crossed his enormous arms over his barrel chest and studied her.

  “I think ya know more than yer sayin’.”

  The skinny kid put a hand on her shoulder and Catriona did the only thing she could do.

  She screamed.

  Unicorn covered her mouth with his hand and she bit the fleshy mound of his palm. He yelped and slapped her, upwards against her nose, causing her eyes to water.

  She winced before a thought occurred to her.

  He tried to silence me. There must be someone nearby who can hear.

  She screamed again.

  Chapter Seven

  It was dark.

  Very dark, but for a pin hole of light up and to his left. His knees ached and he tried to stretch, only to find himself restrained by his surroundings. He reached out and felt walls. Top, bottom, side to side.

  I’m in a chest.

  Not a proper chest. He could tell how thin the walls were by the sound they made. He took a deep breath and punched straight up.

  The top gave way.

  Light streamed into his tiny prison. He continued to punch and tear until he could climb from the box—only to find himself in another box. This one was more spacious and plush. It had windows. He peered outside and saw dirt and a large, square structure that seemed too shiny to be made of wood.

  Taking a moment to catch his breath he attempted to recall the last thing he could remember.

  A lassie. A lassie on a bed, asleep.

  The memory made him smile. He had no idea who she was or where he was, but something about that girl sleeping made him smile.

  No.

  Wait.

  There was a gun.

  Something about that girl and a gun. She confronted him, stood there in her shift—

  A scream split the silence and he straightened, banging his head on the roof of his new, fancy box. It was a woman’s scream.

  He peered through the window. The scream had to have come from the structure outside.

  He tapped on the glass and found it to be thick. Feeling his hip, he realized he no longer wore his kilt but a robe made of strange, soft material, like a rabbit’s hide but in an unnatural color. The flash of silver wrapping the corner of his prison chest caught his eye and he tore away a piece, folding it into a makeshift sword. It wasn’t sturdy, but it might give an enemy pause and, in his hands, anything could be a weapon.

  Could it? Why do I know that?

  No time. He couldn’t remember much more than his name and the sleeping girl, but he was sure he knew how to fight.

  He was about to kick out the window when he noticed an odd latch on the wall. He pushed and pulled at it until he heard a click. Putting his shoulder against the wall, it opened upward until he tumbled out.

  Standing, he glanced back at his prison and found it was on wheels.

  Stranger still.

  No time to figure out what it was or where he was.

  Wiping the sweat from his brow on the sleeve of the strange fuzzy robe, he pounded toward the huge square building as a second scream rang out.

  Chapter Eight

  The outer door crashed inward, nearly striking Thorn, who stumbled out of the way. Unicorn pulled his gun.

  A sweaty man in a pink fuzzy robe filled the entry way, his chest rising and falling with belabored breath. In his hand he held a long silver square of metal that Catriona guessed had been stripped from the edges of the case in which he’d been trapped. Until recently.

  It was good to know the Highlander was alive and breathing. She’d never been happier to see a sweaty giant in a pink fuzzy robe.

  The skinny man dove forward and the Highlander flattened him with a single punch to the face. The efficiency of the blow was almost cartoonish. Catriona took the distraction as an opportunity to slide her bound hands up the back of the chair, stand, and kick the gun from Unicorn’s hand. He’d been so busy sizing up the intruder he’d never seen her coming.

  His hand free from his gun, Unicorn grabbed her arm and jerked her towards him.

  “Take your hands off of the lassie,” said her new favorite person. More or less. It sounded more like tack yer hauns aff th’ lassie but it was clear enough what the man she only knew as Kilty or the drunken loser I found on the lot, meant. After all, she was the only lassie in the room.

  Unicorn looked to his boss.

  Redbeard stood staring at the young man in his doorway.

  “It’s impossible,” he mumbled.

  Unicorn gave Catriona’s arm another jerk. “Thorn. Whatya wanna to do?”

  Thorn tore his gaze from Kilty.

  “Let her go.”

  The lumpy-headed henchman complied with reluctance. As soon as he freed Catriona’s arm, Kilty reached forward and drew her to him. Wherever her skin touched his the flesh became slick. He felt like a warm, sweaty eel.

  Kilty rattled the metal strip toward the two still-standing men, and once at the unconscious, skinny man on the floor for good measure.

  He backed out of the room, guiding her with him, her arms still tied behind her back. Once outside, he scooped her in his arms and jogged toward the truck.

  “They stole yer horses!” he screamed as they neared the vehicle.

  “What?” She pushed against his chest. “Why are you carrying me? Put me down idiot, they didn’t kneecap me!”

  “Whit?”

  “Put me down!”

  He stopped and dropped her to her feet. The moment she found her balance she sprinted for the car, calling to Kilty as she ran. “My arms. I can’t drive with my hands tied behind my back. You have to drive.”

  Catriona glanced back at the building. The two conscious men stood outside now, staring at them, still as statues.

  She started around the Jeep and noticed Kilty, pale, standing beside the driver’s door.

  “Get in!”

  The wild look in his eyes told her all she needed to know.

  “You can’t drive, can you?”

  He pursed his lips.

  “You can’t drive. Fine—whatever. I’ve got a knife in the glovebox. Get it and cut me loose. I’ll drive.”

  He continued to stare at her. She looked back at the building and saw her captors still standing, watching.

  Why aren’t they chasing us?

  She was trapped in the middle of the most ineffectual, longest escape ever. How long could their luck hold out?

  “Hurry!” She hissed at her baffled savior, nodding hard to the right. “The other side of the truck. Open the door. There’s a box in front of the seat. Open it and get me the knife.”

  Kilty jumped into action as if he’d been electrocuted. Sprinting around the truck, he fumbled with the door a moment before throwing it open and retrieving the pocket knife. He held it out towards her.

  “What am I going to do with that? Cut me free you oaf.”

  “Och.” He nodded and cut the zip tie from her hands, muttering beneath his breath as he worked the blade through the tough plastic.

  Catriona kept her eyes locked on her captors, but still, they seemed content to watch her and Kilty fumble through their grand escape. The skinny man had joined them, a sheet of blood pouring from his nose. He, too, stared.

  Hands free, she pulled the Jeep keys
from her pocket as she circled back and hopped into the driver’s seat. Starting the vehicle, she waited a moment for Kilty to enter the passenger side. Instead, she felt the truck shake.

  He’d jumped in the back.

  She looked over her shoulder and found him squatting, the hatch still wide open.

  “What are you—nevermind. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  She tore down the dirt road leading away from the building.

  Something inside of Catriona worried it was all a trap. The strange way her captors watched their escape—the only explanation was that the truck would explode before they drove ten feet, or that a blockade would keep them from getting very far—but nothing happened.

  When they hit the highway, she remembered again to breathe.

  When Kilty spoke, she jumped. So wrapped in her thoughts, she’d forgotten about the sweaty titan crouching in her cargo area.

  “Ah wid hay come sooner but they locked me in a chest.”

  They. Catriona realized Kilty thought the bad guys locked him in the roadie case.

  No reason to correct him.

  “No problem. Hey, who are you? What’s your name?”

  The man clung to the backseat headrest as the highway rushed away behind him on the opposite side of the still open hatch.

  “My name is Brochan.”

  “Did you say your name is broken?”

  “Aye. Brochan. Broch. Those men. Whit did they want wi' ye?”

  “I think they might be after you, though it didn’t seem that way once you got there. They didn’t chase you. But the way that guy stared at you, like he saw a ghost. Did you know the man with the red beard?”

  “No. Was one of them yer husband?”

  “My husband? No! Is that how men treat their wives where you come from?”

  “Are ye married?”

  “No…and what the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  He peered between the back headrests at her until she became unnerved.

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “A'm trying tae figure whit’s wrong with ye.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me!”

  Catriona pulled over and twisted to glare at him.

  “Is there somewhere I can take you? I think getting as far away from you as I can might be good for my health.”